Friday, July 29, 2011

Gee-whiz it sounds all warm and fussy and all American, but it's not even close. This tea party rhetoric is for economic simpletons and the ignorant. Unfortunately, listening to C-Span phoned in comments proves that this comparison has taken hold with much of America's dumb and dumber. The US economy is a tiny bit more complex than balancing your fucking checkbook and paying down you credit card debt while sitting at the kitchen table.

Think about it please. Almost all businesses borrows money when needed. The money is lent based on the company's credit rating and promise to repay the money. Most Americans don't pay cash for everything. Most American wouldn't own a house, big screen or car unless they could use credit. So the availability of credit is part of the American Dream, it's the same for the nation. Buying things over time with credit when it wouldn't be possible if you had to pay cash for everything is what made America and its middle class the economic engine for the world. The real question is how you manage and use the debt.

The Treasury lends money to the country when needed to pay it's debts. If the government is required to pay cash for everything (the balance budget amendment) you'll also be saying goodbye to social programs that support millions of Americans. Because taxes are so low, especially for the wealthy, the government will not have the cash to pay as you go. The government underwrites the borrowing it does to pay for needed programs including such things as, war, protection of the environment, infrastructure by selling treasury securities, it's often called printing money. The much talked about 14th amendment to the constitution was put in place in part to assure that the government will always have a way to pay its debt even if it didn't have the cash by using its own credit backed up by government securities.

"The analogy about balancing your check book and getting your finances in order is wrong. The right analogy for not raising the debt ceiling is going out and having a spending spree on your credit card and then refusing to pay the bill.
That's what not raising the debt limit is."Ben Bernanke

10 years of eggheaded talk and hairsplitting is enough. Let's get on with construction. Vote yes on Referendum 1. When all the options were examined the consensus of the stakeholders was that building the tunnel was the most workable solution.

"I am a small business owner most years, I make over $250,000, and you know Republicans keep on saying they can’t tax the wealthy; they’re the job creators. Ed, They’re wrong. As a small business owner, I am not a job creator. The middle class in this country is the real job creators, those people making $30.000, $40,000, $50,000 a year. Ed, you know two-thirds of our economy is driven by consumption. That consumption is not being done by the top 2%. It’s the vast middle class, people listening have to understand that businesses exist to create a profit. You have to make businesses hire by creating demand for their goods and services. We have a demand problem in our economy, not a cash problem for businesses, Business owners, wealthy people, they don’t need more cash."

Would America be engrossed in 3 wars an economic crisis now if Senator John Kerry actually had won the White House in 2004?

The probability of widespread vote manipulation in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election appears at this point to be one of the most underreported political stories of the century, and another prime example of the main stream media dropping the ball on a story that could of literally changed American history.

Republican Kenneth Blackwell the Ohio Secretary Of State at the time and Michael Connell who served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove seems to be at the middle of the vote "hacking" plot, further exposed in recent court filings. Court documents and testimony add additional credence to the probability that the election was stolen for George Bush. The new evidence also indicate the hacking of votes may of been controlled directly through the White House.

Kerry lost the State of Ohio by 118775 votes amid reports of widespread voting irregularities. Had Ohio gone to Kerry he would of been elected president. Connell died a month and a half after giving a deposition about the allegations in a suspicious small plane crash. It will be interesting to see if we ever get the truth. It would not surprise me or anyone with a brain if we found out that Carl Rove was the middleman in this criminal manipulation of the outcome of the 2004 election.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Just follow the Republican and Tea Party's radical example of a dine and dash by skipping out on paying your bills like they have for their fucking wars, and gigantic tax breaks for the already filthy rich. When your mortgage holder, creditors or the debt collector calls demanding money just tell them "it not my problem it's yours", and would they be open to making you a low interest loan which you may of may not pay back. Looks like I'll need a bigger car to live in....

I'm a Pescatarian, meaning I don't eat red meat, only seafood. Therefore it was a double whammy with Goldy's post this morning on Slog about his gas problem that he believes may of been caused by contaminated chicken and this related story in the Everett Herald about what local seafood should only be eaten in moderation because of contamination.

Goldy makes a worthwhile point that unless something is done about protecting our food supply, and I'd add reducing pollution, over fishing and corporate farming methods, we'll all have a bigger problem then just indigestion. By the way, reducing your intake of meat, including chicken, helps the environment by reducing carbon emissions and in the long run is probably better for your overall health.

This segment from last night's O'Reilly Factor, which featured an interview by Bill of Lou Dobbs, would be hilarious if it weren't a prime example of what many pompous, conservative, out of touch, rich white men accept as a definition of what constitutes being considered not poor in America.

O'Reilly and Dobbs claim that many that are considered poor actually make money working in an undefined underground economy. But, they conveniently fail to mention anything about the massive underground economy that exist for the wealthy and tax evading corporations.

Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary and former adviser to President Obama, spoke to the Aspen Institutes's Walter Isaacson at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference about everything from the deficit crisis to the technology bubble to his character in The Social Network.

"The idea that these people are threatening to make the country default so they can get their way is beyond belief. Look, on the merits of the deficit policies and the budget policies, I obviously tend to share the President's views. But you can make perfectly reasonable arguments for, in the direction of what the House
majority favors. But threatening to make the country default? I mean it is not something that should be treated as a civilized discourse."

Sunday, July 10, 2011

“It’s time for tough love,” Mrs. Bachmann told supporters at a rally.
“Don’t let them scare you by telling you that the country’s going to
fall apart.”

"Time for tough love"? I'd hate to think what default would would mean for the poor and middle class, and the economy and debt ceiling doesn't exactly equate to the pop-psychology that they talk about on the Dr. Phil show....

"Not counting the BP disaster, we found at least 6,500 spills, leaks, fires or explosions nationwide - that's 18 a day. Overall, at least 34 million gallons of crude oil and other potentially toxic chemicals were spilled. That's triple the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill."

The high profile oil spill in the gulf last year or the current spill in Laurel, Montana only scratch the surface when it comes to the number of spills or accidents taking place on a daily basis just in the US. An industry spokesman's response,"we're lucky it's not worse." Instead of acting with some inkling of responsibility these multi billion dollar companies give us bullshit like this or this. Sorry about the Goldman Sacks of Shit ad that proceeds the CBS News video...

I admired Hemingway for his fame as a writer, his stories and his macho two fisted manly drinking lifestyle. I think I set out in life to emulate Hemingway and other manly men like him from the days of my first thoughts on the subject. I have empathy for the many biographers and psychiatrists who have struggled over the years since his death to explain this complicated alcoholic and self-centered legend of American letters.

Like Hemingway I found out early in life that alcohol could suppress the many demons within me. There was enough material in my life to produce a good Death Of A Salesman type novel, the family dramas, the bigger than life domineering father figure, the disappointments and the expectations. I joined the army in 1965 at 18 to escape and “be a man” and see the world. After the Army I lived in France and Spain hoping to connect in some subconscious way with Hemingway’s bohemian early days. It always included excessive drinking, debauchery and risk taking.

Later my personal selfishness exacerbated by alcohol led to my abandonment of my basic responsibilities to my wife and children. Of course, my parody lacked the talent, fame, war and money. But on a much smaller scale it mimicked the emotional turmoil which I tempered with drink. The near death experiences, accidents, bar room brawls and occasional thoughts of suicide became recurring daily events.

It was not until I turned 42 that I realized that drinking was an endgame. I relished in it even though I was slowly dying inside and out. Many alcoholics reach a jumping off point where life with or without alcohol seems impossible. Many unfortunately choose to end it like Hemingway did, unable to comprehend a way out while believing their lack of control is a sign of weakness.

Remarkably, I found a solution that worked for me. I feel that many experts and biographers complicate things when it comes to analyzing the reasons for the self-destructive lifestyles of troubled alcohol and drug abusing individuals, like Hemingway. I believe egomania underlies the demise of most of these individuals. Outside influences play a large part certainly in shaping the eventual self-destruction, but ultimately it comes down to the responsibility of the individual to realize that their personal defects are at the heart of the real problem.

I don't condemn men and women like Hemingway who are caught in this trap. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you."

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Berle was often accused of plagiarism for copying the material of others for use in his own act. This video puts forth the premise that the roots of creativity are always based in copying the ideas of others.